Joseph McAuley

The news concerning religion is not very encouraging these days particularly when it is coupled with terrorism and violence skewering its true meaning for those who seek its relevance However there are stories that offer glimmers of hope there are instances where people of faith can come togeth

lsquo Twas back in 1845 when you went across the wide AtlanticTo see for yourself what oppression in another place was likeYou were a freed Black man who put foot in a country not your ownBut one for which you quickly came to have the greatest empathy for despite your Anglophile sympathies You had

It wasn rsquo t until I actually stood upon that porch of Mount Vernon mdash or the ldquo piazza rdquo as it is called mdash that I finally came to appreciate and understand the man who was ldquo first in war first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen rdquo It never would have

Those serene-looking saints we see depicted in those plaster or wooden figurines on exquisite pedestals in our churches can be very deceiving Looking at their calm demeanor on their fine-crafted faces can lull one into thinking that the sainthood process is a rather placid affair a sudden expres

It was on January 30 1882 that Franklin Delano Roosevelt the 32nd President of the United States was born mdash and that was 133 years ago It is hard to comprehend that a figure of modern American history can almost be counted in terms of centuries instead of years and in FDR rsquo s case almost

Nothing was expected of St Francis de Sales when he was born on August 21 1567 He was born prematurely and as a child he was regarded as delicate and sickly Yet somehow he survived and grew to adulthood Contemporaries described him as a sturdy man a pleasant man a religious man He was all

G K Chesterton once wrote a biography of St Thomas Aquinas Originally published in 1933 it was simply called St Thomas Aquinas ldquo The Dumb Ox rdquo How rsquo s that for a catchy book title Years ago when school was my primary occupation I came across this appellation of the saint and

The life of Coretta Scott King mirrored the history of a people in a land who have always struggled for racial justice while maintaining the dignity that God had bestowed on them.